1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an advertising system and advertising signs, and in particular, to an advertising system and advertising signs that transmit and receive data about products and services appearing in the advertising signs that show advertisements using a network.
2. Description of the Related Art
Advertising Signs
Advertising signs are signs showing advertisements about products and services, and they are commonly seen in shopping areas, buildings, and train stations. Users who wish to know more detailed information about these products and services after viewing this advertising sign or users who have decided they would like to receive an offer of these products and services after seeing the advertising sign take, for example, the following actions.
Specifically, one action is going to a store that handles the products or services. Another action is to write down the URL (Uniform Resource Locator) address or the like, input this information into a computer, PDA (Personal Digital—or Data—Assistant, a mobile information terminal), or mobile telephone, and then access a server via the Internet in the case that address such as the URL for the server on a network appears in the advertising sign. This server provides detailed information about the products and services and handles offers of these products and services.
Wireless Devices
Generally, apparatuses that transmit and receive data by using electromagnetic waves (electrical waves or light) or sound waves (including ultrasonic waves) and that use a multiple access format such as FDMA (Frequency Division Multiple Access), TDMA (Time Division Multiple Access), or the like can carry out one-to-many communication. However, because they are expensive, inexpensive apparatuses that do not use multiple access formats such as FDMA, TDMA, or the like are used. One example of such an inexpensive apparatus is a remote control apparatus that uses infrared light (refer, for example, to Hiroyuki Takagi and Shigeyuki Nakatsuka, “Special Topics—Techniques for Wireless Data Transmission: Understanding Infrared Remote Control”, in Transistor Technology (in Japanese), vol. 33, no. 386, CQ Publishing, November 1996, pp. 261-268).
Therefore, among inexpensive apparatuses such as remote control apparatuses that use infrared light, one-to-one communication over a single channel is assumed.
The reception directionality of the conventional wireless device that assumes one-to-one communication over a single channel is shown in FIG. 21.
As shown in FIG. 21, in the conventional wireless device 200 that assumes one-to-one communication, an infrared light receiving element having an extremely broad directionality is used in the wireless receiving unit 201 in order to allow reception of infrared light or the like transmitted from a remote control apparatus from any direction. Moreover, reference numeral 202 in the figure denotes the directionality pattern of the wireless receiving unit 201.
Advertising Signs
However, going to stores that handle the products and services, writing down the URLs that appear in an advertising sign, and inputting the noted URLs into a computer, PDA, or mobile telephone, is time consuming and laborious.
Therefore, in the conventional advertising sign, there is the problem that address appearing in the advertising sign, for example, the URLs of a server that handles products and services, is not actively used.
Thus, conventionally, there has been the problem that advertising signs do not serve as a direct buying or selling device.
A system that uses a bar code reader and a mobile telephone is a method for solving this problem (refer, for example, to “Distribution Management Systems using Bar Code Readers for Mobile Telephones”, Mobile Media Magazine (in Japanese), vol. 79, C. Media Co., Ltd., March 2002, p. 15). In this system, a mobile telephone and a bar code reader are connected, and the bar code reader reads the bar code in an advertisement. The values read by the bar code are then used by the mobile telephone. In the case that the bar code in the advertisement represents a URL, it is possible to read the data for the URL into the mobile telephone by reading the bar code, and thereby the user does not have to input the character string of the URL. However, when a bar code reader is used, because the information presented in the advertising sign is in the form of a bar code, it is not intuitively obvious to the user that the bar code represents a URL. Furthermore, in order for the user to read the bar code, it is necessary for the bar code reader to be brought sufficiently close to the advertisement, and thus the range in which the URL can be read into the mobile telephone is limited.
Wireless Devices
In addition, although the conventional wireless device 200 described above has an infrared light receiving element that has an extremely broad directionality, as described above, multiple access formats such as FDMA and TDMA are not used. Therefore, in the conventional wireless device 200 described above, in the case that data is transmitted simultaneously from a plurality of wireless devices, there is the problem of interference between the data signals, and they cannot be received.
In addition, in the conventional remote control apparatus, because invisible infrared light is used, the direction in which the infrared light is being transmitted is unclear. Therefore, in the case that there is a plurality of the conventional wireless devices 200 shown in FIG. 21, there is the problem that a wireless device other than the desired wireless device will receive the infrared light transmitted from the remote control apparatus.